Black women face compounding risk factors for heart attacks after having children, making preventative, specialized, and early health care a necessity.
by Pamela Appea
This article was originally published at Prism
Ten years ago, just two weeks after giving birth to her second child, Wakisha Stewart was out with her husband when she started feeling disoriented, nauseated, and short of breath. Stewart was a nursing assistant at the time, but despite her medical training, she didn’t immediately know what was happening—it wasn’t until she felt a crushing pain in her chest, neck, and jaw and was immobilized by the pain that she realized something was “terribly wrong.”
“Everything became a blur because now I’m realizing, ‘I’m 31 years old, and I’m having a heart attack! How? Why?’” Stewart recalled.
At the time of her heart attack, Stewart had no family history of cardiovascular issues. Fortunately, she went to the hospital for emergency medical care and received a diagnosis: She had suffered a spontaneous coronary artery dissection, known as a SCAD.
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